When Amber's father has a stroke, she leaves behind her husband, Ned, in London and flies home to South Australia. There she meets back up with her old friend, winemaker Ethan. With him now single after a failed marriage, she is forced to compare her strong feelings for him with her own relationship with Ned, and wonders whether she wants to return to England at all. Amber's mother was killed in a car crash when she was three, and Doris, the woman who came across the scene, is trying to track her down to pass on her mother's last words. Although I was surprised Doris' search for Amber was only a minimal part of the storyline, the book's real strength lies instead with Amber's relationships - with her stepmum Liz and the men in her life - her father, Ethan and Ned. Toon does a fantastic job of altering readers' perspectives of these characters along the way.
The Sun in Her Eyes, by Paige Toon, is about a woman whose sad past is about to re-emerge.The summary says: "Blinding sunshine... A bend in the road... What became of the little girl with the sun in her eyes? Amber was three when a car crash stole her mother's life. She doesn't remember the accident, but a stranger at the scene has been unable to forget. Now, almost thirty years later, she's trying to track Amber down. Amber, meanwhile, is married to Ned and living on the other side of the world in London. When her father has a stroke, she flies straight home to Australia to be with him. Away from her husband, Amber finds comfort in her oldest friends, but her feelings for Ethan, the gorgeous, green-eyed man she once fell for, have never been platonic. As Ethan and Amber grow closer, married life in London feels far away. Then Amber receives a letter that changes everything: 'Before your mother died, she asked me to tell you something...' The Sun in Her Eyes is out in May 2015.